Listen closely, that's Kenji Kawai giving a live drum performance for the preview.

It's a great recreation of the original movie's famous 'birth of a cyborg' scene. The attention to detail both here and in the trailer has been superb. Which honestly is not something I thought I'd end up saying when this project was announced, given what happened with Dragonball Evolution. Nevertheless, the trailer and this opening scene have me convinced. That everyone involved on this project genuinely cares about doing justice to the source material. At this point I have every confidence that Hollywood's take on Ghost in the Shell is going to be a good movie.

I've got some nostalgia watching the trailer when I saw the scene where Major jumps from the tower, the fight scene in the water and the robotic maids scene (was that from S.A.C series? )

I don't have complaints, the action is pretty similar to the atmosphere of S.A.C series! Hyped

I know it's an original story, but what kind of GITS will be ? When I saw Stand Alone Complex elements, Original movie scenes and ARISE elements I couldn't help but getting confused! will the laughing man appears?

EDIT: Ghost in the Shell being really successful, do you guys think that a Cowboy Bebop live action/hollywood movie would be possible ?

I was really on the fence about seeing this film. I too grew up with Ghost in the Shell being a major influence and I wasn't all too thrilled with the casting choices. After seeing the full length trailer just released, I was swayed a little more into checking it out once it's in theaters.
I'm currently pursuing my BFA in filmmaking and I must say, Hollywood is still a ginormous, strange power hungry beast. I would've liked to have seen a more varied cast but with the way things are in Hollywood, it's all about the studio backing the project. In this case it's Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks. Their the ones investing in the project with the majority of the money and unfortunately they typically take away a lot of the creative control projects ought to have. That is also another issue I have with the way things are currently handled in the film industry. I believe this is one of the reasons why indie films have been doing so well lately. The independent filmmaker can now start their own studio which can allow more creative choice and control with its projects as opposed to the major studios.

The first is from the dialogue chosen for this trailer, it would appear this version of the Major doesn't know who she is. Which, is like, several kinds of wrong. In every other version of GitS the Major knows exactly who she is. She knows and understands her situation, what she is, who she is, and that the Japanese government owns her ass(literally, because her cybernetic body is their property). Her knowledge of who she is is her rock. It's the only thing she can 100% trust in a world where everything can be manipulated, especially in the digital realm.

The second is the scene with the woman she kisses. The tone of the woman's voice and the combined look of fear, disgust, and confusion on her face when she says, "What are you?" is hinting that full body cybernetics is looked down upon in this particular GitS universe. Which is another thing that just irks me greatly, because several characters in the GitS franchise either have full cybernetic bodies or major cybernetic jobs done that doesn't leave much of their organic bodies. In fact, the whole point behind Togusa is to have a field member of Section 9 who is 100% organic. Everyone else who works in the field for Section 9 have some level of cybernetic upgrades, and in most of the series, Togusa is the one looked at for being weird because he's all squishy.

I appreciate the replication of the iconic scenes from the movie, SAC, and even Arise, but those two things are giving me major worries that they don't actually "get" Ghost in the Shell.

Oh and the fact that they are somehow adapting the Individual Eleven arc from 2nd GIG in this film makes me bracing for the worse, because no way in hell can they condense that into a single film and keep the spirit or themes of it intact. I've actually already resigned myself that it's going to be hella dumbed down. It simply has to be, both to make it fit, and so most audiences can actually understand what the hell is going on. I'm not saying audiences are dumb, just that GitS in all of its glory is....a bit above most of their heads.

I feel like I've had my teenage memories trashed on by Hollywood. I've seen the first anime movie Ghost in the Shell. And the sequel. And the anime series of Stand Alone Complex 1st and 2nd Gigs. And the film they made for that series, Solid State Society. And you know what?

This trailer looked so horribly bad. I feel like Hollywood just took what they liked and isolated the rest of the scenes and dialogue the made Ghost in the Shell so cool. I bet you anything its not going to have that whole Blade Runner, Cyber Punk vibe the first film had going for it.

Yes the white-washing of cast that we knew to be Japanese because the story, setting, and plot is set up in a future Japan; just degrades the whole meaning of the original film. American Empire had it's people and cast of characters in the first film. Will Hollywood, as a gaff, Japanese-wash those characters so everything is up side down and right side up?

Or will the original plot about the Puppet Master have nothing to do with this film. Will all the nooks and crannies of Philosophy, Ethics, and the essence of Humanity get ripped away in just extreme violence in order to appease the masses?

Never seen any Ghost in the Shell anything, but I don't think I would start here.

Like tntcls posted on the previous page, the trailer reminded me of Aeon Flux, which I did like, but nothing in the trailer really compels me to go see this.

If it wasn't called "Ghost in the Shell", there's little that would make me think this is any different from a normal movie.

I know that me voicing my opinion is kind of odd considering I haven't seen Ghost in the Shell, but I thought it might be interesting to get the opinion of someone not invested in the franchise. The trailer looks fairly generic - nothing bad by any means, but also nothing that's particularly enticing.

Although, I do quite like the voice and demeanor of the main character, "Major". I don't know how the actress compares to the original character, but if I were to go see this movie for some reason, it would probably be because I liked what I saw of her in this trailer. But like I said, I'm not invested in this franchise, so she could be butchering it for all I know.

What a piece of shit. They took the first GitS movie and turned it into an over the top action schlockfest with wire-fu elements for some reason. They ape some scenes shot-for-shot but others have these big overblown elements added like the manor running across a wall like she's in crouching tiger hidden dragon or the city that once looked like a normal urban environment with a tech advancement here or there is now just the city from the 5th element. They also removed just about every visual device for the themes of the film I can think of. It's so bad that they made Major Johansanagi actually look like a robot all the time. Why the fuck would you even do that? You want to put effort towards fucking up?

The kicker of it is, although some of you may doubt me on this, I would be okay with these things if they seperated themselves from the movie more. GitS is such a huge franchise with so many unique and different interpretations that I would have no problem with the idea of a hollywood film that tries to be its own part of the meta-series without tieing itself to any other part. But of course coming up with something vaguely original is far too much to ask from hollywood these days so of course they're just going to do a live-action version of the most popular iteration and, of course, completely half-ass it.

All cynicism aside, I'm actually somewhat hopeful based on what I saw. Doing an origin story is not a bad angle to take, since essentially every iteration of GITS does an alternate origin tale of Motoko, and we have to remember this medium demands a plot arc that can fit neatly into two hours.
I'm not sure your complaints about there not being black actors in it, there appear to be several. I actually like how they made Johannson look, and whether it's Hong Kong or bits of Tokyo they used the scenery is amazing and exactly what it should be. What made the original movie so spectacular for me was the vibe that future version of Hong Kong had with all the towering, rusting apartment buildings and shadow spaces between. No episode of Stand Alone matched that aura. I've seen every episode and movie of the series, I'm probably a bigger fan of this series than any other and was very worried about the movie. I think those fears are being put to rest by this looks awesome.
My complaints are Batou's appearance... he should not have facial hair he's a clean cut ex-Ranger for cripes sake. And the music what I heard didn't seem much exciting. It would be nearly impossible to top the soundtracks of the first movie or anything by Yoko Kanno, so I guess I can let this slide. Will definitely be going to see this when it's showing.